Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description in this section is not prior art to the claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
There is provided a typical image forming apparatus that includes: a drum unit (image carrier unit) with a photoreceptor drum (image carrier) onto which an electrostatic latent image is formed; a developing device, which includes a developing roller (developer carrier) supplying toner to the photoreceptor drum, located adjacent to the drum unit; and an intermediate transfer belt (intermediate transfer body) onto which a toner image developed on the photoreceptor drum is transferred.
This type of image forming apparatuses require replacement of a drum unit including a photoreceptor drum when a count of printed sheets reaches a predetermined number of sheets (for example, several tens of thousands of sheets), due to the life of the photoreceptor drum. Sliding the drum unit in a rotation shaft direction of the photoreceptor drum mounts or removes the drum unit with respect to the image forming apparatus body.
There is an image forming apparatus where sliding a drum unit in a rotation shaft direction of a photoreceptor drum mounts or removes the drum unit with respect to the image forming apparatus body.